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IT as a
Service
IBM Limited Edition
by Judith Hurwitz and

Daniel Kirsch
These materials are © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Any dissemination, distribution, or unauthorized use is strictly prohibited.
IT as a Service For Dummies®, IBM Limited Edition
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Table of Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
About This Book......................................................................... 1
Foolish Assumptions.................................................................. 2
Icons Used in This Book............................................................. 3
Chapter 1: Why You Need IT as a Service . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Explaining the Transition of IT.................................................. 6
Defining IT as a Service.............................................................. 7
The Importance of Modular Services....................................... 8
The Value of the Hybrid Computing Model............................. 9
Looking at Different Cloud Delivery Models.......................... 10
Infrastructure as a Service............................................ 10
Software as a Service...................................................... 11
Platform as a Service...................................................... 11
Business Process as a Service...................................... 12
What Is DevOps in the Hybrid Cloud?.................................... 13
The focus on innovation................................................ 14
Flexibility at the core..................................................... 14
The Importance of Automation............................................... 15
The Value of Brokering Services............................................. 16
Policy-driven approach.................................................. 17
The importance of planning.......................................... 18
Chapter 2: Explaining the IT Supply Chain. . . . . . . . . . . 19

Understanding the Value of a Supply Chain.......................... 19
Defining the IT Supply Chain................................................... 20
Today’s disconnected silos........................................... 21
No department is an island........................................... 22
Creating and Managing the IT Supply Chain......................... 22
Core Foundations of the IT Supply Chain.............................. 23
Self‐service portal........................................................... 23
Service orchestration..................................................... 24
Business process services............................................. 24
Application services....................................................... 24
Data services................................................................... 25
The importance of cognitive analytics........................ 25
Integration and APIs....................................................... 26
Cloud services................................................................. 26
Creating the Path Forward....................................................... 26
iv IT as a Service For Dummies, IBM Limited Edition
Chapter 3: Defining the Services Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Supporting a Hybrid Environment.......................................... 27
Begin with planning........................................................ 28
How a hybrid approach supports change................... 28
The Underpinnings of IT as a Service..................................... 29
The Journey to IT as a Service................................................ 29
Life Cycle Management of IT as a Service.............................. 31
The service catalog........................................................ 32
Patterns and best practices.......................................... 33
Service automation and orchestration........................ 35
Brokering IT services..................................................... 36
Service integration......................................................... 37
API management............................................................. 38
Chapter 4: Getting Started with IT as a Service . . . . . . 39

The Business Requirement...................................................... 39
Understanding Your Workloads............................................. 40
The Role of Standardization in Infrastructure...................... 41
Protecting Your Company....................................................... 41
Thinking beyond the Data Center........................................... 42
Creating a Sustainable Model.................................................. 43
Managing for Predictability and Change................................ 43
The Journey Is Just Beginning................................................. 44
Introduction
W elcome to IT as a Service For Dummies, IBM Limited
Edition. IT as a Service is the emerging technique that
gives technology leaders the flexibility of providing the right
set of services to the business. The world of IT is changing
dramatically. Businesses are increasingly discovering that
IT services are becoming the foundation for the customer
experience. IT as a Service isn’t simply a new delivery model
for applications. Instead, IT as a Service is a new approach
to providing an array of modular services that are targeted
to solve changing business problems. While services can be
as straightforward as compute or storage in the cloud, they
can also be used to complex solutions. Other services may
include microservices or integration services that enable
a business to quickly create new solutions to help service
customers in a more creative and efficient manner.
The model for IT as a Service requires some advanced plan-

ning in order to create consistency and predictability. Before
you achieve a new model for computing, you need to start
with your current reality. What type of infrastructure is in
place now? What applications are running in your data center
and in your business units? How well does your current envi-
ronment serve your business? Even more important, how well
does your current environment support your customers?
The goal of IT as a Service is to increase the capability of the

business to create new innovative solutions quickly. Are you
prepared to change when new competition emerges? Can the
IT organization become an agent to support this change?
About This Book

This book is intended to help you understand the fundamen-
tals of IT as a Service. IT as a Service is a hybrid computing
environment that enables companies to leverage the data
center and public and private clouds in order to provide the
business with the appropriate services based on price, avail-
ability, security, and level of service.
2 IT as a Service For Dummies, IBM Limited Edition
How does the IT organization change as it becomes a service

provider to the business? This book focuses on the strategy
and planning process needed to begin to make the transition
to a new model. In addition to doing the right level of plan-
ning, IT organizations have to be able to coordinate with busi-
ness units in order to address their future requirements.
If you’re a business leader or the head of IT services, this

book provides you with a road map to the types of technology
you need to understand and how the planning process works.
This book also gives you an understanding of the ongoing
collaboration process between IT leadership and business
leaders.
Foolish Assumptions
The information in this book is useful to many people, but we
have to admit that we did make a few assumptions about who
we think you are:
✓✓You are already using a variety of internal and exter-

nal services to better support the business’s need
for change. You want to be seen as a partner with the
business.
✓✓You are in the process of creating a radically new model
for computing that is focused on speed, agility, and
compliance. You know that responding to the need for
innovation is the heart of technology adoption for your
company.
✓✓You understand the huge potential value of a services
model and are prepared to move forward to help your
company grow and avoid competitive threats.
✓✓Your organization is beginning to understand that all
your computing resources are becoming a set of IT ser-
vices that are designed with the modularity and flexibility
to move your company forward efficiently and effectively.
Introduction 3
Icons Used in This Book

The following icons are used to point out important informa-
tion throughout the book:
Tips help identify information that may help you save time,
money, and more.
Pay attention to these common pitfalls of managing your foun-

dational cloud.
This icon highlights important information that you should

remember.
This icon contains tidbits for the more technically inclined.
Chapter 1
Why You Need IT
as a Service
In This Chapter
▶▶Explaining the transformation of IT
▶▶Defining IT as a Service
▶▶Leveraging modular services
▶▶Understanding the value of the hybrid model
▶▶Differentiating cloud delivery models
▶▶Looking at the role of DevOps in the hybrid cloud
▶▶Discovering the importance of automation
▶▶Promoting flexibility through brokering services
I T is changing rapidly in the era of digital disruption. IT

can no longer exist as a rigid environment where applica-
tions are built based on business processes that are outdated
before an application is written. IT can’t afford to play defense
against the changing needs of the business. Just a few years
ago, IT organizations were fearful of the advent of cloud
services. As a result, IT leaders saw that business units were
beginning to use public cloud services because they couldn’t
convince IT to be responsive to their needs.
A lot has changed. IT leaders have recognized that to both

survive and thrive they need to be part of the solution so that
the organization can respond to new challenges and opportu-
nities. In this chapter, we explore why IT is transforming to an
IT as a Service model. We also explain the changes and how
the business benefits from the value of the new IT.
Explaining the Transition of IT

Technology adoption and change has typically followed major
business upheavals. In eras where businesses change slowly,
technology adoption is also slow. However, when there are
major shifts in business strategy and game changing technolo-
gies emerge, new ways of leveraging innovation explode.
The typical IT organization has gone through many different

transformations over the past five decades. The initial era of
computing actually looked a lot like cloud computing. This
model, called timesharing, was created to allow companies to
buy time and capability from large complex systems. When
computing needs of enterprises were static, this partnership
between service providers and businesses worked well. But as
the pace of business change quickened in the 1980s, it became
clear that this model was too slow, too expensive, and too
inflexible. As a reaction, businesses moved IT in‐house. The
results were well received. But there were massive changes
in technology that began to explode in the last decades of the
20th century that brought in new distributed technologies
and new software options that helped smart businesses move
faster than their competitors.
In the last several years, new competitive threats and busi-

ness opportunities have emerged from new, never imagined
companies. The advent of the public cloud changed every-
thing for IT. Business units were unhappy with the lack of agil-
ity of many IT organizations. Line of Business (LoB) leaders
were seeing emerging companies leverage cloud services to
create new product and service offerings that had the poten-
tial to attract new buyers and hold onto loyal customers.
Something had to change. These leaders took charge and
leveraged the public cloud to build new innovative services
in an effort to innovate and keep customers happy.
Even as LoB leaders used public cloud services at an increas-

ingly rapid pace, many IT leaders fought the transition for a
while. They didn’t want to see their IT organizations under-
mined. These IT leaders had legitimate concerns about issues
such as privacy and governance. But they began to recognize
that if they were to have a seat at the management table, they
would have to change. Change meant that they would have
to embrace the cloud and find ways to offer the right level
of flexibility with the right level of control. IT as a Service is
Chapter 1: Why You Need IT as a Service 7
the strategy and process of balancing flexibility with financial
management and control.
IT leaders are using IT as a Service as a way to build alliances

with business leaders so that IT can deliver the right services
with the right service level at the right time.
Defining IT as a Service
IT as a Service is an operational delivery model for providing
IT services in a variety of consumptions models based on the
requirements of the business at that time. Many IT organiza-
tions are transforming themselves into IT service providers
and adopting an IT as a Service strategy. By transitioning to
an IT as a Service model, IT organizations are transforming
themselves from traditional IT groups to brokers of a variety
of public and private cloud services, third‐party managed
service providers, and traditional data center services. By
offering brokering services, IT is able to have insights into
costs and help the business make better decisions to keep
costs in check. By adopting an IT as a Service strategy, IT
organizations are able to gain the trust and confidence of
the business leaders.
Becoming a trusted partner

A mid‐sized retailer was experienc- sophisticated online experience that
ing massive changes in the market. would leapfrog the upstarts. IT was
There was an ever‐increasing number eager to help, but there were prob-
of online retailers that were challeng- lems. The CEO didn’t want to use cloud
ing the retailer’s market position. The services for fear that customer data
company was well established and would be compromised. The business
had a reputation of delivering excel- leaders were more concerned about
lent products to a loyal customer keeping up with the latest technology.
base. But with the influx of competi- IT practitioners were unfamiliar with
tors something had to change. cloud services and wanted to build a
new customer application within the
The LoB leaders were in revolt. They
data center.
demanded that IT move quickly so
the company could offer customers a
(continued)
(continued)
Things were not going well. Each process. It required transforming IT

meeting ended up as a shouting from an integrated set of platforms
match. Business leaders stopped and applications to an organization
attending meetings all together and that had a catalog of self‐service
began sending a junior analyst as offerings that would meet the chang-
their representative. ing business needs. These would not
be static services. Rather, there would
As a result of the communica-
be a catalog of services that would be
tions breakdown, business leaders
in compliance with corporate security
instructed their analysts to use public
and governance policies. Application
cloud services to build the type of cus-
Programming Interfaces (APIs) would
tomer facing applications that could
be added to link the right services
help it survive the new competitors.
together to deliver results. All these
The writing was on the wall. The CIO offerings would include a self‐service
realized that the fight for control was interface for business users.
hopeless. It only managed to cut the IT
At first, the business leaders were
organization out of planning and deci-
skeptical that IT could change. But
sion making. Therefore, the CIO made
over time, IT became a service orga-
a decision to rethink the role of IT. The
nization and trust began to grow. No
IT organization could become a ser-
longer did business leaders skip strat-
vice supply for whatever technologies
egy meeting with IT leaders.
the business needed. It wasn’t a s imple
The Importance of
Modular Services
Being able to move from a hierarchical computing model to a
more flexible services model requires modularity. The idea is
straightforward: To become an IT service provider, you need
to provide a catalog of services that can be linked together
to create new applications and new value for the company.
These services have to be orchestrated together to create
business value. A monolithic application can be deployed in
a cloud, for example, but it can’t be easily modified. A legacy
application would need to be decomposed so that all the indi-
vidual modules are understood. At this point, these modules
would need to be assessed to determine if they’re viable for
use in the cloud environment. After you have these modular
services, they become the foundation for a cloud marketplace.
A modular service is a clearly defined process that has no
dependencies to outside services. It also includes well‐defined
APIs. Each service needs to be tested both for accuracy of the
captured policy and for technical accuracy. These services
are then put into a catalog so it’s clear where the service
originated, how it should be used, and who’s allowed to
change that service.
This type of modular architecture helps to create the type

of environment where services can be used in a variety of
deployment models based on the needs of the organization.
The Value of the Hybrid

Computing Model
The hybrid cloud is becoming the de facto approach for IT
organizations that are adopting IT as a Service models. A
hybrid cloud strategy allows companies to quickly change
processes and compute requirements to keep up with the
pace of business change. For example, you may want to create
a new mobile application that satisfies customer demands to
access key services via a mobile application. For many cus-
tomers, mobile applications are the primary way they interact
with companies. Satisfying the expectations of customers is
a critical requirement for companies because many emerging
competitors are able to reach high levels of customer inti-
macy and accessibility via mobile and web applications. When
hit with a strong competitor, suddenly you have to be able to
demonstrate that your company can react quickly to retain
market leadership. This means supporting the right deploy-
ment model while maintaining access to the right data and
the right workloads. Ultimately, forward‐looking companies
think of the computing resources as a set of services and best
practices that can be brought together to support changing
customer requirements.
There are many approaches to adopting a hybrid cloud

environment based on IT as a Service. There isn’t one right
answer. The solution depends on your objectives and needs.
Some companies have jumped all in on cloud computing and
have made the decision to operate totally on a public cloud.
However, as a company grows, it’s important to assess how
well the public cloud vendor handles changing security and
governance requirements to protect customer data.
When your company has backend transactional systems,

you have to make sure that your cloud services can work
seamlessly with these assets. These backend systems are
often best managed inside the data center to protect intel-
lectual property and to manage performance. Costs can also
become a major concern. You need to have a consistent and
predictable way to calculate costs and expenses of the differ-
ent options. If you choose to deploy all your operations on a
single public cloud, make sure that you have a well‐designed
contract that protects your company from unanticipated pric-
ing changes. Finally, as you plan for your hybrid cloud strat-
egy, break down the barriers between your on‐premises and
cloud‐based systems in order to gain the insights you need to
service customers and grow your business.
Looking at Different Cloud

Delivery Models
To support a sophisticated services model, you can use four
different cloud models.
Infrastructure as a Service
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) is the foundational cloud
service. IaaS provisions compute, storage, and networking
services through either a virtualized image or directly on the
computer systems (also known as bare metal).
An IaaS service is designed as a self‐service environment. A

customer can simply use a credit card to purchase a service
such as compute or storage. Consumers are typically charged
based on the amount of resources they consume. When a
consumer stops paying for the service, the customer loses
access to the resources. In a private IaaS, the environment
is controlled directly by a company’s IT organization. The IT
organization will have direct control over things like security
and who has access to what resources.
In an IT as a Service model, it’s critical to provide users with

the right infrastructure for the task at hand. For example,
if your organization handles medical information, you may
need to provide this level of compliance in your infrastructure
s ervices. Likewise, if a team is running data intensive analytics
workloads, the infrastructure has to support high availability.
The emergence of a Software‐Defined Environment (SDE)

provides a next generation approach to IaaS and other cloud
services. The goal of IaaS is to optimize the use of system
resources so they can support workloads with maximum
efficiency. An SDE is an abstraction layer that unifies the com-
ponents of virtualization in IaaS so the components can be
managed in a unified fashion. In effect, the SDE’s intention is
to provide well‐designed APIs and a management environment
for the variety of resources used within an IaaS environment.
SDE brings together compute, storage, and networking to

create a more efficient hybrid cloud environment. It also
allows developers to use a variety of types of virtualization
within the same environment without the burden of hand‐
coding the linkages between these services.
Software as a Service
Today, many applications are available in a Software as a
Service (SaaS) model. SaaS is an application that’s architected
to operate as a cloud service. Many business users benefit
from the ease of use and fast delivery of applications deliv-
ered on the public cloud. Alternatively, an IT organization can
use its private cloud to host and deliver internal applications
to meet the needs of its internal business users.
One of the benefits of leveraging applications delivered

via the cloud is that the user isn’t responsible for software
updates and maintenance of the application. However, unlike
a traditional on‐premises application, the user doesn’t have
a perpetual license for the application. Instead, the user pays
on a per‐user, per‐month, or per‐year basis.
Platform as a Service
Software development, deployment, and operations has
evolved over the last several years. Platform as a Service
(PaaS) is a cloud development platform that gives develop-
ers an underlying level of middleware services that abstract
the complexity away from the developer. In addition, the
PaaS environment provides a set of integrated software

development tools. When a company is taking an as‐a‐Service
approach, leveraging a PaaS environment allows developers
to focus on creativity and innovation.
A well‐designed PaaS consists of an orchestrated platform

to support the life cycle of both developing and deploying
software within the cloud. A PaaS platform is designed to
build, manage, and run applications in the hybrid cloud
environment.
Unlike traditional software development and deployment

environments, the software elements are designed to work
together through APIs that support a variety of programming
languages and tools. Within the PaaS environment are a set of
prebuilt services such as source code management, deploy-
ment of workloads, security services, and various database
services.
Business Process as a Service

One of the benefits of a hybrid cloud environment is the abil-
ity to link business processes from a variety of services and
systems in order to satisfy a customer need. Encapsulating
business process allows teams to reuse prebuilt and tested
processes. Rather than recoding common procedures, devel-
opment teams can leverage predefined business processes. In
an IT as a Service model, making business processes reusable
allows development teams to focus on innovation and helps
ensure that services will function in a predictable manner.
Flexibility is key for companies that want to change a process
when the business changes.
There are several different ways that business processes are

handled in a hybrid cloud environment. A number of business
processes are mature and not likely to change quickly. For
example, some services include payment services. Payment
processes can be complex and include taxes, shipping
options, and so on. However, other situations arise where
business processes need to be able to be changed on the fly.
For example, your company has discovered that an emerging
competitor has come up with a novel approach to streamlin-
ing the payment process. If the core business processes can
be modified quickly, your company can adapt business pro-
cesses across the company and keep up with competition.
Often customers demand that companies adapt their business
processes based on what they see from emerging vendors in
the market. As customer expectations rise, businesses must
adapt to meet their customers’ expectations.
Hybrid computing isn’t a single environment. Instead, it’s a

combination of resources, including the following:
✓✓The traditional data center

✓✓A variety of public cloud services (including IaaS, SaaS,
PaaS, Process as a Service, and Data as a Service)
✓✓Private services managed for a single company either
without its own firewall or in a securely managed service
The hybrid cloud is intended to help you use whichever com-

puting services make the most sense given your requirements
and constraints.
The value of a hybrid computing environment is flexibility.

No one can anticipate when a new deployment model will
emerge or when company or regulatory policies may dictate
a change. For example, an application has been piloted in a
public cloud. However, when the application moves into pro-
duction, management may decide that it should be deployed
in a private cloud because of either governance or security
concerns. Cloud capacity is another imperative. You need to
include business strategy, organizational skills, the ability to
manage projects, and the portfolio of services. In some situa-
tions, financial managers may decide that the current pricing
model doesn’t work and an alternative must be sought.
When you leverage an IT as a Service model based on a modu-

lar set of services, you have a lot more flexibility to move
workloads based on issues, such as performance, security, or
costs. Offering this level of flexibility can help transform the
reputation of the IT organization.
What Is DevOps in the

Hybrid Cloud?
Developing, updating, managing, and monitoring applications
are all mandates of IT organizations. But with the advent of
hybrid clouds and a variety of deployment models including

mobile, DevOps requires a technical change in how applica-
tions are created. At the same time, there’s a cultural change
required to ensure that the business and technical organiza-
tions are collaborating to achieve the right outcome.
We are in an era where both business users and customers

have rising expectations. Customers expect applications to
give them the right data and the right time in an easy way. In
addition, customers have no tolerance for application errors
or outages and will simply move to a competitor’s offering if
they have difficulty with an application. Many organizations
are rethinking their application development, deployment,
and management techniques to help better serve customers.
DevOps isn’t an isolated process or a one‐time action. DevOps

is a technique that combines the processes of dynamically
creating applications in concert with the processing of deploy-
ing and managing those applications. DevOps is a continual
process and requires changes to both technology and team
culture. DevOps supports the requirement to continuously
improve, deploy, and monitor new innovative applications to
support changing business needs.
DevOps requires both a technical change in how applications

are created and a cultural change in how IT collaborates.
The focus on innovation

Innovation is becoming a key to business change and trans-
formation. Emerging companies with little legacy and new
business models are challenging incumbent business leaders
like never before. To meet the speed of innovation, the soft-
ware development, deployment, and operations have begun
to transform from silos of deployment and deployment into
a continuous life cycle model. By allowing developers and
deployment specialists to work in collaboration, they can
create applications that are dynamic and flexible.
Flexibility at the core

Services must be flexible and continually modified to meet
the requirements of constituents. Achieving fast application
deployments and updates requires collaboration between the
business, development, and IT operations. This need for align-
ment and collaboration is the driving force behind the shift
to DevOps. Organizations that have implemented DevOps are
able to achieve the following goals:
✓✓Continuous innovation: Employees from across devel-

opment, operations, business owners, and so on work
together to quickly release new software that can delight
customers and maximize opportunities.
✓✓Continuous delivery: Automating software delivery
processes and eliminating the need for routine tasks
removes inefficiencies and allows the organization to
continually deliver innovation.
✓✓Continuous learning: Creating a feedback loop by moni-
toring software and customer interactions allows an
organization to adapt applications to meet expectations.
The end‐users (whether they’re customers or business users)

don’t care how an application is developed, deployed, or
monitored.
A DevOps approach needs to be complemented with addi-

tional business process changes that support innovation
and rapid customer feedback cycles. Establish standardized,
consistent, and repeatable processes for managing software
quality from requirements definition through to delivery,
deployment, and operations. Equally important is the neces-
sity to ensure that these new applications perform well based
on customer expectations.
The Importance of Automation

IT as a Service has the potential to transform the delivery of
critical application services to the business. But it doesn’t
happen by magic. Instead, providing a set of well‐defined
services across a hybrid environment requires automation
services that deliver both agility and speed. IT as a Service
requires the following automation services:
✓✓Orchestration services: These services automate the

process of enabling a variety of services from on‐premises
systems to connect with services in both public and pri-
vate clouds based on best practices and policy.
✓✓Business policy services: When creating IT as a Service,

make sure that users are directed to the right IT service
based on everything from the business requirement to
budget and governance and security. There is a need to
make sure that users are accessing the right data from
these services so results are accurate.
✓✓Catalog services: Business services and components
that are to be used in an as‐a‐Service environment have
to be managed in a consistent and predictable manner.
Each service should be vetted and tested. Does this
service conform to corporate guidelines? What are the
dependencies for use of the service? Who is allowed to
change the service? Where are the services located? In
essence, when you create an as‐a‐Service model, all the
elements have to be identified and managed so things
operate seamlessly behind the scenes. This protects the
integrity of the business.
✓✓Workload balancing services: It is important to make
sure that when you link a variety of services together
that they operate as though they’re consistent and pre-
dictable. One aspect of this requirement is to make sure
that workloads are well balanced so their performance is
guaranteed.
These examples help ensure that IT as a Service can operate

in a predictable manner. These automation components are
part of an overall hybrid cloud management framework that’s
emerging to enable a variety of services to act and behave as
a single environment.
The Value of Brokering Services

The cloud computing world offers a vast array of riches from
which IT organizations can choose. Hundreds of different
public cloud offerings exist. There are thousands of SaaS
applications and even more cloud computing tools. How do
you select the right environment and the right services when
you’re contemplating offering your users IT as a Service? This
question may not be simple to answer.
IT as a Service must be a dynamic environment. The environ-
ment has to serve a variety of changing business needs. It
also has to have the capability to manage and predict costs.
The value of brokering is that it begins with a planning pro-
cess to understand the needs of the business to be proactive
combined with the constraints on costs and need for the right
level of security and the right level of service.
Policy-driven approach
The value of cloud brokering is to establish a process so
business units have the right mix of freedom to select the
right service with the right amount of control from IT. Cloud
brokering is an environment that acts as an intermediary
between different cloud services. A cloud broker provides
self‐service IT across a variety of hybrid cloud environments,
managed services, and data center services. A well‐designed
cloud broker provides a holistic model for a policy‐driven
approach.
The idea of a cloud broker is not new. The early cloud brokers
were vendors that could negotiate deals with public cloud pro-
viders. However, there’s a new generation of cloud brokers that
combines planning services with a software infrastructure to
provide an end‐to‐end view of all your cloud and on‐premises
resources. The brokering service provides an infrastructure
that has capabilities to evaluate a workload and determine the
best environment for deployment.
The broker identifies a set of authorized services combined

with business process and policy rules. After these services
are in place, business units can freely use a self‐service portal
to procure the right capabilities with the right service level
and security that’s authorized by both IT leadership and the
business. A well‐designed brokering environment provides the
business with the choice and flexibility to use public, private,
or data center services when needed. The environment can
streamline the process of discovering, planning, managing,
and governing computing services. In essence, this approach
is analogous to a supply chain where all the individual ele-
ments come together to create a seamless process.
The importance of planning

Imagine this scenario. A CFO of a public company asks the
CIO to attend an emergency meeting. The CFO is getting
ready for the next quarterly earning announcement. One of
his analysts has shown him that spending for IT services is
25 percent higher than the previous quarter. This increased
spending wasn’t anticipated, and it is clear that the spending
will require explanation. The CIO is taken by surprise. The IT
budget had been approved earlier in the year. After reviewing
the information presented by the CFO, the extra costs are for
public cloud services — including both compute services and
SaaS applications being used by most of the business units
in the company. The amount of money spent per month is
staggering. Clearly, the CIO is embarrassed and angry. From
her perspective, the business units have gone rogue in their
spending without any accountability.
While this may be an extreme example, it’s an indication

that business units often take matters into their own hands
when they are unhappy with the performance of IT. While it’s
imperative to enable business unit leaders to move quickly
to innovate, IT services have to be planned and managed so
spending can be planned and controlled.
Chapter 2
Explaining the
IT Supply Chain
In This Chapter
▶▶Recognizing the value of a supply chain
▶▶Explaining the IT supply chain
▶▶Matching supply with demand in a supply chain
▶▶Creating the path forward
O ne of the requirements to achieve IT as a Service is to

create a supply chain of related services that creates a
model that supports the business goals. Without an IT supply
chain, you have a set of services that aren’t designed to work
together in unison. To be successful with IT as a Service, you
should pull in all the required elements needed to fulfill the
requirement. These components may be internal IT services,
such as transaction management or third‐party data or secu-
rity services. Some of these services will be designed and
managed by ecosystem partners.
In this chapter, we explain what an IT supply chain is and how

it makes IT as a Service a viable approach to the industrializa-
tion of IT.
Understanding the Value

of a Supply Chain
What is an IT supply chain? To understand this concept, we
begin by explaining the traditional supply chain model and
then relate this to the IT supply chain. A supply chain is a

combination of all the resources, people, and activities that
come together to bring a product or service to the customer
to achieve the desired outcome. The most common use of the
supply chain is in the manufacturing sector. In manufacturing,
it is critical to bring together the right parts, supplies, and
related specialized services to get products to market effi-
ciently and effectively.
The successful supply chain requires an ecosystem of fully

vetted participants. In addition, managers of that ecosystem
must coordinate every element of the supply chain, including
sourcing, shipping, parts management, manufacturing, and
the final distribution of completed goods. The supply chain
needs to be tightly coordinated with customer demands and
expectation. The manufacturer must find a balance among
satisfying customers, keeping manufacturing costs low, and
making sure that there’s enough inventory. All the processes
have to be in sync so the company is profitable, maintains
the right level of quality, and satisfies current and future cus-
tomer needs. A well‐designed supply chain is a system of orga-
nizations, people, activities, information, and resources that
work in collaboration to successfully execute a company’s
product creation and delivery of products or services.
Defining the IT Supply Chain

When an organization moves to an IT as a Service model, it’s
required to create a supply chain of products and services.
Just as in the manufacturing supply chain, the IT supply chain
must be created that brings together all the right elements
in order to create transparency for the end‐user of the IT
services. After all, with IT as a Service, users want to access
the right services whenever they want based on policies such
as cost, security, and resiliency. Furthermore, the IT orga-
nization must be prepared for possible disruptions with the
supply of services, and it needs to plan for alternative deploy-
ment options.
Like a supply chain, an IT as a Service model requires tight

control, insight, and management. IT as a Service requires
that an ecosystem of trusted services comes together and
can work across a hybrid computing environment as though
it were a single unified system. In the manufacturing supply
Chapter 2: Explaining the IT Supply Chain 21
chain, the vendor has its complex ecosystem of suppliers
ranging from component producers to warehousing. This
same transition is happening within IT. With any supply chain
model, there needs to be an infrastructure that understands
all the elements of IT service model operating as an ecosys-
tem of services, partners, and management services. As with
a manufacturing supply chain, the ecosystem of services and
partners has to match with cost, performance, policy, and
quality requirements.
Therefore, IT leaders must be able to create a unified process

that brings together a variety of services that includes public
clouds, private clouds, SaaS applications, managed services,
security services, data services, and services that reside in
the data center. To be successful, you can’t plan and execute
cloud services in isolated ad hoc project silos. You need to
increase the level of maturity across the organization so cloud
becomes the platform for executing on both IT and business
strategies.
Today’s disconnected silos

In the days of unified computing environments, there wasn’t
a need for an IT supply chain. However, today most organiza-
tions leverage a wide variety of on‐premises and public cloud
services. In most cases, these IT services are operated and
managed as disconnected silos. One department may select
an Amazon public cloud service to develop a new application
while another organization will use IBM Bluemix or Azure
for infrastructure services. Another department may use a
designated Platform as a Service (PaaS) environment like IBM
Bluemix, while others may encourage developers to choose
whatever cloud service they prefer. Adding to the complexity
and inefficiency, three or four business units may all be using
identical services from the same vendor. Because coordina-
tion between departments isn’t happening, economies of scale
don’t exist, and the company cannot negotiate better business
terms. When business units select their own cloud services
without a planned strategy coordinated with the IT organiza-
tion, it leads to Shadow IT. Selecting a set of independent ser-
vices can be helpful to execute a task quickly, but it can lead
to problems. These Shadow IT projects can quickly become
strategic and therefore will have to comply with overall busi-
ness governance and policy requirements.
Shadow IT is a term to describe the common trend in com-

panies where employees leverage technology resources
without the approval or knowledge of the internal IT depart-
ment. Shadow IT became more common with rise of cloud
computing because employees could easily obtain technol-
ogy resources on their own. In most cases, employees utilize
Shadow IT because they want to efficiently perform their
jobs. For example, many employees began using cloud col-
laboration tools to share large files with co‐workers. However,
Shadow IT can put corporate, customer, and partner data at
risk and make it difficult to comply with regulatory and com-
pliance rules.
No department is an island
The status quo might suffice in a world where each business
unit is an island without the need to connect to other busi-
ness units and partners. However, we know that in the real
world this approach simply doesn’t work. Too many connec-
tions between lines of business and partners need to happen.
These linkages must be coordinated in order to maintain a
strong and vibrant environment. In addition, as compliance
and regulatory rules become more stringent, companies need
to gain visibility and enforce the same policies across the
business.
The only way to overcome these challenges is to create an IT

supply chain that links all the business elements, as well as
those of IT, together in a coordinated and predictable manner
that supports business change and agility.
Creating and Managing

the IT Supply Chain
Like any supply chain, the IT supply chain is made up of vari-
ous parts from a wide number of vendors. When you start to
think of IT as a supply chain, the role of IT begins to evolve.
Instead of remaining the organization that creates and man-
ages the whole environment, IT becomes the manager or
broker of IT services to support business goals. It is the IT
team’s mission to orchestrate these services as one consis-
tent environment.
A fundamental element of the supply chain is the constant
change in supply and demand. Like a manufacturing supply
chain, the IT organization must be able to predict demand in
order to keep customers happy. For example, if your organi-
zation has initiative to engage customers via mobile applica-
tions, you need to make sure that your mobile application
development and deployment platforms can scale to accom-
modate more users. In addition, make sure that your applica-
tion management and operations platform is up to the task of
monitoring more applications and interactions on a variety of
devices. This process requires you to acquire the right perfor-
mance management tools to ensure that the mobile applica-
tions are satisfying end‐user expectations.
Core Foundations of the

IT Supply Chain
In this section, we discuss some of the core elements of the IT
supply chain. These IT supply chain foundations are depicted
in Figure 2‐1.
Figure 2-1: The IT supply chain.
These services aren’t stand-alone technologies; they’re managed

and delivered as a set of integrated services. Each organization
will have different supply chain elements based on business and
customer requirements.
Self‐service portal
In the IT as a Service model, the way users procure IT services
is completely different. In the traditional IT model, if a busi-
ness unit wants an IT service, it typically had to submit an offi-
cial request to the IT department. The request would go into
a queue and may take days, weeks, or even months to be ful-

filled. This traditional IT provisioning approach fails to meet
the demands of high‐paced, changing businesses. In an IT as a
Service model, users are given access to a self‐service portal
where they can select the services they require. The portal
only reveals the services that the user is permitted to access.
For example, a developer’s portal might display options for
different PaaS environments, while a business user’s portal
may show a variety of approved business applications.
Service orchestration
Orchestration services help tie services together in an auto-
mated way. Effective management of core elements of the IT
supply chain have to be managed dynamically depending on
how the underlying services are used. As business process
and workflow change, orchestration services need to adapt
in order to pull all the IT supply chain elements together. It’s
important that orchestration provides a way to bring the right
services together based on the usage of services and best
practices.
Business process services

Business process services allow developers to create new
applications based on the way a business has to operate. In an
IT as a Service model, business processes are designed based
on bringing the right software modules together. For example,
inventory tracking might be an important aspect for a variety
of applications. By creating inventory tracking as a reusable
service, this process can be used in many different situations
within the company. The result of successfully creating busi-
ness process services is that development groups can quickly
create consistent applications based on pre‐vetted code.
Application services
The IT as a Service model is designed to apply technology to
solve a wide variety of business problems. There isn’t a single
way that organizations are utilizing applications and applica-
tion services in their IT supply chain. Therefore, a well orches-
trated IT supply chain must be able to accommodate many
different application services and models. Most organizations
have existing applications that the business depends on. In
some cases, those core applications should be left untouched
because they contain years of complex business rules.
However, the business may gain flexibility and cost savings
by moving other applications to different platforms. There is
also a need to modernize aging applications by modularizing
key services through containerization. In addition, many com-
panies are opting for Software as a Service (SaaS) applications
that reside in the cloud. In most cases, companies will lever-
age a combination of PaaS, SaaS, and on‐premises services to
meet their needs. It’s important for the IT organization to have
visibility into what applications are present in the company,
who has access to what applications, and what types of data
reside on each application.
Data services
Companies want to be able to leverage key data sets in order
to make better decisions. One of the issues many organiza-
tions face is that the important data about customers, prod-
ucts, and process isn’t unified. Instead, critical data may be
spread across different business units.
To be effective, organizations are beginning to create data

services that are designed to be able to be used outside of the
way that data was created. These data services are designed
for use in many different situations. For example, there
could be data services that relate to product problem issues.
Another data service may contain all the important informa-
tion about all the products a company sells. These services
can be offered as a service to both various divisions in a com-
pany or to key business partners in the IT supply chain.
The importance of cognitive

analytics
Cognitive analytics is an integral element in making an IT as a
Service platform operate effectively and efficiently. The under-
lying system is required to collect the massive amount of data
about how the components operate as a system. By applying
cognitive analytics, the system can learn and change based
on best practices and the required level of service. Over time,
cognitive analysis can ensure that anomalies are detected
before they can impact performance.
Integration and APIs

In the era of modular business services, the Application
Programming Interface (API) becomes the most important
technique for creating new applications to support business
goals. APIs must be designed based on standards so both
internal constituents as well as members of the company’s
ecosystem of partners can use them. Using these APIs enables
integration of components to be much more straightforward.
Cloud services
IT as a Service is predicated on providing a set of foundational
cloud services. Turning these services into an IT supply chain
requires a supporting dynamic service catalog that identifies
each service and its policies of use. There will be policy and
business rules that dictate when and who can access different
services. Just like in a manufacturing supply chain, these
dynamic cloud services ensure that all the elements that make
up a successful execution of processes are followed. This same
approach applies to application creation and deployment of
new services to support evolving business requirements.
Creating the Path Forward

Thinking about IT as a Service in the context of a supply chain
is helping businesses change their approach to IT. This new
industrial model means that the business has a reliable and
predictable partner to enable agility and fast business change.
The IT supply chain does not happen in a vacuum. It requires
collaboration with key business leaders in your company and
your trusted suppliers.
Chapter 3
Defining the
Services Model
In This Chapter
▶▶Supporting a hybrid approach
▶▶Defining the IT as a Service model
▶▶Taking the journey to IT as a Service
▶▶Understanding the life cycle management of IT as a Service
M oving from a traditional computing environment to IT

as a Service requires rethinking how IT is organized
and how it executes a variety of services, processes, and appli-
cations in a seamless manner based on business requirements.
All the orchestration and management of these elements has
to be handled seamlessly in a consistent and predictable
manner.
In this chapter, we examine what it takes to lay the founda-

tion for IT as a Service. What are the services that have to be
in place? How is the environment managed so that business
users can access the right services at the right time? When
a well planned IT as a Service model is put in place, IT can
become a true business partner.
Supporting a Hybrid
Environment
IT as a Service goes hand in hand with the hybrid comput-
ing environment. Organizations are increasingly embracing
a computing environment that includes a variety of public

and private cloud services and a variety of managed services,
combined with services from backend systems. In fact, many
CIOs think of all these environments as computing and don’t
distinguish between the various capabilities. For this thinking
to become a reality, it requires that IT as a Service is a hybrid
environment based on providing transparency across any ser-
vice that exists today and those that are emerging as impor-
tant to the business. Therefore, the IT as a Service journey
must begin by rethinking what it means to provide the right IT
services to the business in a modular and flexible manner.
Begin with planning

The journey must begin with a planning process that includes
the ability to understand what the current environment
looks like today. This first step gives you an understanding
of both your strengths and weaknesses. For example, how
modular is your existing infrastructure? Has your company
begun to move to create reference architecture? Even more
importantly, you should collaborate with the business units
and business strategists to understand the changes that the
business is undergoing today. You have to begin planning so
you’re ready when there are unanticipated changes to busi-
ness strategy.
How a hybrid approach

supports change
With a hybrid approach, organizations need to be able to
incorporate new and emerging cloud services based on
changing circumstances. A change might be the emergence of
a new type of data integration service that will help business
units break down silos between their organizations to support
a new business initiative. There might be new business pro-
cess services that will make it easier to provide a brand new
offering to customers to prepare to take on a competitor. This
approach requires a combination of hybrid computing with
reference architecture.
Chapter 3: Defining the Services Model 29
The Underpinnings of
IT as a Service
Most companies would love to be able to start from scratch and
build a modular services‐based architecture that would allow
them to service all their customers and suppliers in a consis-
tent and predictable way. Unfortunately, most companies have
a variety of data center applications, departmental systems,
private clouds, public clouds, managed services, and Software
as a Service (SaaS) applications. So, you have to deal with a
complex world where companies need to create a road map to
move from their current state to a more flexible future mode
of operations. This may include creating a “bi‐modal” IT opera-
tions so you can combine traditional hardened IT services,
such as secured transactional systems, with agile services
designed to solve a new problem. The more agile service may
only require a subset of the rich set of IT operational services.
Businesses will need a combination of different services to
address a variety of changing needs.
The Journey to IT as a Service

A successful approach to IT as a Service means that you
have to think about the way you can abstract complexity so
the users of the services have a seamless customer experi-
ence. One of the greatest benefits of the movement to IT as a
Service is the self‐service portal. When the details of services,
integration, service orchestration, and the like are abstracted,
it’s possible that a business analyst can create new value with-
out needless delays. Business unit leaders don’t care about
what is behind the scenes in IT. They care that IT services can
be created to serve customers quickly and effectively.
Take the example of an application development leader in a

mortgage department of a financial services company. The
company has just acquired a business that offers a unique
type of mortgage product that provides agents with new rev-
enue opportunities. The development team has been asked to
quickly create a new application that can provide a self‐service
for agents to sell both existing and new product offerings.
In the old days, the team had several options. They might
use existing resources in the data center or a departmental
computing environment. They might have requisitioned
new resources. However, given the short time frame and the
bureaucracy involved, the team leader decided to use a set of
public cloud services.
Behind the scenes it gets tricky for the team because it

needed to access the right customer and prospect data from
a variety of sources. The team leader wanted to make sure
that her team could easily collaborate on development and
deployment of these new services. She also has to make sure
that the right level of security is in place based on the identity
of both the developers as well as the ultimate users of the
service. The application had to be modular and to be able
to support a variety of deployment models from browsers
and mobile devices. The application also had to scale from a
small pilot to an environment that could support up to 10,000
agents. Long term, the application would also have to be
available directly to potential customers.
Keep in mind that not every organization can immediately

implement IT as a Service. Effectively leveraging IT as a
Service requires changes throughout the organization. The
capability to move quickly depends on the level of maturity
and modularity of your existing IT infrastructure and the ele-
ments you already have in place to support your goals. You
also have to consider the changes in business strategy and
what services you need to execute your plans.
Needless to say, this can be a complicated process with the

current reality of most IT organizations. The value of trans-
forming into an IT as a Service model is to make the task of
developing applications become a much more industrial model
with best practices and underlying technology services. When
IT as a Service is in place, there will be consistent ways of
developing, deploying, and managing the right applications
and services with the right security and right performance.
This is the goal of IT as a Service.
Everything is a service
Managing services isn’t a one‐time o fferings. At the end of the day you
process. It involves making sure that need to hide the complexity and
all the moving parts work together provide the right level of integration
as a system. You need to establish and manageability under the covers.
checks and balances for customer A great example is how a banking
goals, financial goals, and strategic customer deposits a check. Decades
objectives. Therefore, services have ago the customer had to take a physi-
to be understood in many dimensions cal check, hand it to a teller, and wait
ranging from customer experience for that teller to complete the trans-
metrics and business performance action. Contrast this with the current
indicators to how individual compo- business process where the banking
nents operate and interrelate. customer captures the image of the
check and sends the transaction to
Remember, services are simply the
the bank via a mobile device.
way that users experience your
Life Cycle Management of

IT as a Service
It is important to understand IT as a Service in context with
a life cycle management process. All the services that are
required to create a services platform need to be updated
and managed to reflect changes in the business and the evo-
lution of technology offerings. In this section, we focus on
the technology underpinnings of this life cycle, including the
service catalog, patterns and best practices, orchestration,
automation, brokerage services, integration, and Application
Programming Interface (API) management.
IT as a Service isn’t a static approach to managing your com-

puting environment. You need to change your thinking about
the overall IT environment and begin thinking in terms of life
cycle management of services. In order to be successful with
IT as a Service, you need to have visibility across the services
and have an understanding of how all the pieces fit together.
This is important because you are moving away from the
traditional approach of managing each application or envi-
ronment as if it were its own closed system. IT as a Service
requires a context that encompasses all different types of ser-

vices and how they can work together to support user needs.
Life cycle management has four goals:
✓✓Transparency: The ability to get available resources and

services and how they can operate together
✓✓Measurability: The requirement to manage workloads
and anticipate future resource needs
✓✓Accounting: The ability to track which services are being
used for what purpose and how much they cost
✓✓Cost management: The ability to understand and com-
pare costs of obtaining both internally and externally
provided services; enables organizations to do capacity
and resource planning
Don’t think of each of these parts of the life cycle manage-

ment as isolated issues. Instead, understand that they are all
related to the best practice of creating an environment that
will stand the test of time. If you adhere to these principles, IT
becomes a true partner to the business because it addresses
visibility and control that is imperative to the way business
leaders think.
The service catalog

A service catalog is at the core of being able to manage ser-
vices across a hybrid cloud environment. A service catalog
identifies and defines the services that are available for devel-
opers and users to meet business objectives. The catalog
defines the parameters and characteristics of each service.
For example, who is allowed to use the service, how can the
service be used, what are the security requirements of the
service, and what are the dependencies? You need to be able
to establish context across a variety of IT services no matter
where they’re physically located.
Each service that’s identified and managed in the service cata-

log has to be carefully vetted. The service has to be identified
by IT and procurement as an important resource that will be
used by multiple business units. After the service is identified,
it must be tested for accuracy. These services also have to
include the policy rules that govern its use. Some of the ques-
tions that outline these rules include the following:
✓✓Who within IT or the business is allowed to use the ser-
vice and for what purpose?
✓✓What deployment models are permitted for operating
this service?
✓✓Can it run in a specific public or private cloud?
✓✓How is the service integrated with other services?
The service catalog provides guidance as to what services can

be integrated via well‐defined APIs. Data governance is key to
your success. In some countries, data has to remain within
that country. There are different corporate and governmental
regulations that have to be part of your overall plan.
One of the benefits of the service catalog is that it keeps the

details of the service itself abstracted from the user of that
service. The actual code is encapsulated into images, contain-
ers, or as microservices. The catalog also indicates how and
when a service can be altered.
The catalog allows IT to manage commonly deployed IT ser-

vices to ensure compliance, consistency, and security based
on corporate policy. The IT services in a catalog can include
provisioning services, storage services, virtual machine images,
authentication services, and business processes. The service
catalog is one of the lynch pins of IT as a Service and works
hand in hand with the service orchestrator.
Patterns and best practices

A best practices pattern is a solution that includes manage-
ment services available as a standard predefined architec-
tural pattern. A pattern is a copy of code or a database or an
application service. Each pattern has a specific function that
can be repeatedly deployed for a client. A virtual machine is
a good example of the use of a pattern. A virtual machine can
include a common configuration and a set of assets that are
used to solve one specific problem. This same pattern can
be used over and over again for many different customers or
use cases. The virtual machine brings together all the tools,
the patches, and the monitoring tools needed for the situation.
Without the underlying pattern, developers have to start from
scratch to build a solution each time.
How the service desk leverages

the service catalog
How would you integrate the cata- users to take the necessary steps
log into existing system? One good themselves.
example of how the service catalog
This type of service desk can be used
can help with a user‐facing applica-
as a consistent service portal so users
tion is the service desk. Service desks
can provision the cloud resources
have long been the first line of defense
they need, change passwords, and
when something goes wrong with IT
find the right business service they
services. However, the service desk
need to create a new application. This
can also become a bottleneck if there
can be accomplished if there are stan-
are not enough individuals who can
dardized templates built out of best
address user problems. Typically, the
practices knowledge. If implemented
IT organization requires that the user
correctly, these templates can help
generate a trouble ticket, which then
organizations manage the life cycle
requires another set of actions before
of both internally created systems
the problem is addressed. Ironically,
as well as third‐party services that
many of these problems aren’t serious.
are acquired outside of IT. Therefore,
Often a user will forget a password or
this approach is important in a hybrid
forget how to access an application.
cloud world where you need to
Increasingly, companies want to have
account for costs, workload manage-
a standardized self‐service model that
ment, security, and governance.
creates a frictionless way to allow
Executing on best practices creates patterns. These patterns

are the accumulated knowledge of implementation profes-
sionals who’ve had to work with a variety of customers over
months and years. Inevitably, smart consultants are focused
on determining patterns of code that can be used to support
different customer engagements. These patterns can be trans-
formed into code that can be reused repeatedly. The most
sophisticated patterns are a combination of foundational mid-
dleware services with modular services that can be configured
for different use cases. Adding configurability means that it is
easy to take the same service and leverage it to support differ-
ent customer requirements. A well‐designed pattern has been
tested for quality and predictability.
Service automation
and orchestration
Intelligent automation is the technique for bringing together
the right services and then orchestrating them based on how
they’re being implemented. This is a core to how service
management is designed to operate in an as‐a‐Service model.
Automation helps an IT organization keep a system healthy
by executing on service requests and monitoring overall
performance. When there are incidents, automation can be
used to resolve problems before they impact performance.
Intelligent automation also ensures compliance with gover-
nance requirements.
Orchestration is essential when you want to build an applica-

tion from existing services. Orchestration requires process
management through the use of APIs. If the service catalog
is the way you identify and classify services, automation and
orchestration are the techniques for linking together these
services to create workflows. Lower‐level repetitive tasks
can be managed by using service automation. These services
aren’t visible to the user. Automation is used for tasks such as
initiating a trouble ticket or provisioning a cloud instance.
How service orchestration works

A consumer goods company sells have broader use. After identified,
consumer devices through a variety these services were put into a ser-
of retail stores and distributors. The vice catalog that was made available
company has a number of business across all business units. When there
units each with its independent IT was an opportunity to offer a new
groups. While each group had cre- self‐service option to configure the
ated valuable services, these services consumer offerings for distributors,
weren’t shared with other business the business unit IT group was able to
units with similar problems to solve. IT quickly select the right services from
leadership created a task force with the catalog and use orchestration
representatives of each business unit services. This new service provided
to determine what services and pro- partners with a more seamless way to
cesses each had created that could work with the company.
In contrast, service orchestration is used when the task

involves bringing together services defined in the catalog to
create a new business process. The value of service orches-
tration comes into play as you move to the as‐a‐Service model
where you’re taking a variety of predefined services and link-
ing them together dynamically. This is in stark contrast to the
traditional application that’s written as an end‐to‐end process.
Automation has to be implemented in context with applica-
tion performance management. It is not enough to simply link
services together. It is critical to be able to ensure that when
those services create a new business application that the
performance reflects business requirements.
Brokering IT services
A cloud broker is an environment that acts as an intermedi-
ary between various cloud services. A cloud broker provides
self‐service IT across a variety of hybrid cloud environments,
managed services, and data center services. A well‐designed
cloud broker provides a holistic model for a policy‐driven
approach. One of the important benefits of a cloud broker is
that it can provide comparisons between a variety of cloud
services in terms of price and technical capabilities based
on business objectives. A brokerage service can ensure that
the right services are selected based on requirements for
visibility, compliance, security, and governance across the
business. On the other hand, your business demands choice,
speed, and agility. As organizations move from managing
massive, integrated applications to modular services, change
is required. Successful organizations must be able to move
away from simply managing physical “things” to managing
highly distributed services acquired from many different
providers.
The broker provides a mechanism for supporting both the

delivery and consumption side of the business. The delivery
side must have the right services (integration, orchestration,
and so on) to create value that’s needed for those consuming
the services.
Service integration
Integration of data and process has always been one of the
most difficult tasks for IT. In early decades IT simply created
integrated environments where data, process, and middle-
ware were integrated together to create a solution. A lot
changed when the business needed the flexibility to change
applications quickly as customer requirements changed. With
the advent of hybrid clouds, the need to be able to bring a
variety of services across many different deployment models
is critical. Next‐generation agile and modular applications
require access to data that might reside in the data center
or in applications owned by a variety of business units. The
business requires brand new business models that depend on
innovative business processes.
Increasingly, services such as virtualization, container archi-

tectures, and microservices are changing the way applica-
tions are created. Rather than writing code as an integrated
business process, new applications are designed to link
well‐defined services together through API wrappers. These
services leverage orchestration services to create the solution
needed by the business.
Integration as a Service becomes a hybrid integration plat-

form that enables cloud applications or application services
to be linked to each other and to on‐premises applications.
These integration services have to be designed so they can
withstand changes in both business and technology strate-
gies. This hybrid approach to integration helps solve the
problem of application and data silos.
What is a container?
A container is an environment that way that it can reside on any operat-
includes a set of application ser- ing system. The container includes
vices, any dependent services, and a well‐defined API so it can be con-
code needed to operate that service. nected to other services to create an
This set of services is packaged in a application.
Explaining a microservice
A microservice approach is a tech- dependencies to outside services or
nique for building software applica- infrastructure. These services have
tions based on bringing together to include a well‐defined API so the
a set of software modules that are microservices can be linked together
independent of the underlying plat- to create new applications.
form. These microservices don’t have
API management
APIs are critical in an IT as a Service environment. An API
is a defined interface to a service or tool that helps more
effectively develop programs through linking components
together. Standardized APIs have become very important in a
hybrid cloud environment because they enable self‐service. In
addition, these standardized APIs can be stored in the service
catalog to ensure that they are properly vetted. APIs need to
be secure, easy for developers to understand, tested, and reli-
able. In addition, adding the APIs to the catalog can control
who is able to access the API. The value of APIs is that they
abstract the details of the implementation of the service and
only expose the service that the developer needs.
It is likely that in most IT as a Service environments there will

be hundreds, if not thousands, of APIs to help create modu-
lar and flexible services architecture. Therefore, managing
these APIs is mandatory and critical to the success of IT as a
Service, especially because APIs are the most effective way to
create interfaces between backend systems and a variety of
application services.
API management provides a consistent way to manage APIs

as a life cycle. This is critical since APIs are also an essential
means of sharing this intellectual property with customers
and partners. A typical API management platform or portal
enables centralized administration to make deployment easier
and safer. The API management platform provides a set of
tools that helps to build, debug, and deploy these APIs. The
API management portal can also be used to discover what
APIs exist and the rules that govern their use. The portal can
also monitor the performance of APIs so they help manage the
performance of the system.
Chapter 4
Getting Started with IT
as a Service
In This Chapter
▶▶Looking at the business requirement
▶▶Understanding your workloads
▶▶Recognizing the role of standardization in infrastructure
▶▶Protecting your company’s assets
▶▶Thinking beyond the data center
▶▶Designing a sustainable model
▶▶Planning for predictability and change
▶▶Launching into your IT as a Service journey
I f you’ve read this book from the beginning, you may now
have a sense of what it means to transform IT into a set of
services that provide the business with the right solutions to
the right problem at the right time — with the right planning
and collaboration between IT and the business. In this chap-
ter, you discover some best practices that give you a starting
point for your IT as a Service journey. While there are con-
crete steps to take, there are also important sets of planning
milestones that help make your journey a success.
The Business Requirement

The emergence of Shadow IT was a rude awakening for
IT organizations (see Chapter 2 for more on Shadow IT).
Business units were rebelling because teams couldn’t support
new ways of doing business. The digital transformation was
making it impossible to remain with business as usual. As Line

of Business (LoB) leaders took matters into their own hands,
it became clear that things would change forever. IT organiza-
tions that had resisted the rebellion of LoB executives began
to see that they had to rethink the way IT could be delivered.
The answer has become IT as a Service.
In this new era of computing IT, organizations are adopting an

industrial model for services that support business change.
Creating this model doesn’t begin by coding or running out
and purchasing an application. Instead, the process of creat-
ing an agile and nimble computing environment has to align
with the strategic business initiatives.
Successful organizations begin by establishing a road-map

that has five fundamental components:
✓✓Understanding the current state of the business and the

supporting IT assets
✓✓Coming to terms with what works and what needs to
change
✓✓Understanding how IT can become a set of services built
with reusability in mind
✓✓Focusing on the customer experience and the right key
performance indicators both short term and long term
✓✓Setting guidelines for best practices, including economic
viability, governance security, resilience, and predictable
performance
Understanding Your Workloads

Before you can make a successful move to IT as a Service,
you have to take a step back and understand the changing
nature of your workloads. Making an effort to gain an objec-
tive understanding of the nature of your workloads will help
your planning and decision making. Are your workloads self‐
contained or are they modular? If you have a fitness wearable
device, all your workloads will probably reside in a single
public cloud. However, if you have complex analytics you may
use a combination of private services and then burst into a
public cloud service for additional compute. You may have a
sophisticated analysis that you run once a quarter. It makes
sense to use an analytics as a service platform.
Chapter 4: Getting Started with IT as a Service 41
There are situations where workloads are complex and
written as integrated applications tightly integrated with the
hardware platform. Also, if your workloads are steady and
don’t change frequently, an on‐premises deployment for your
workload deployment helps. In this situation, your consump-
tion patterns won’t change often. There is an important cost
factor involved as well. It doesn’t make economic sense to
simply move workloads to the cloud en masse. If this applica-
tion works well for the business, there’s no reason to change.
The journey from a monolithic IT environment to a hybrid

cloud supporting a variety of workloads has many different
starting points. Therefore, you can’t assume that you can
implement a fully automated and orchestrated environment
that supports a range of complex applications. Instead, it’s
much more pragmatic to start slowly with simple workloads
that can operate easily on the cloud. You might start with a
set of compute services for the development organization or
even a self‐contained Software as a Service (SaaS) application.
As your organization matures and understands the best prac-
tices for hybrid cloud, you will add more and more automa-
tion and more sophisticated services modularity.
The Role of Standardization

in Infrastructure
One of the principles of IT as a Service is the ability to stan-
dardize through automation. If all your services are one‐off
in every situation, you won’t be able to achieve economies of
scale of the cloud. Therefore, consider what type of services
you’re dealing with. For example, if an application has been
optimized to operate in a specific hardware environment, it
may not be economical to move that workload to the cloud.
In that situation, there’s often a requirement for developers
to manually change settings or configurations. Without a level
of automation, creating an environment focused on IT as a
Service can be difficult.
Protecting Your Company

No matter how well you’ve designed your environment, if
it isn’t safe for customers and partners, you have put your
ompany at risk. Therefore, think about the following three

c
factors that help you create a well‐performing IT as a Service
environment:
✓✓Design security policies and controls as part of the IT

as a Service fabric. Without a good security platform,
you can’t protect your company’s assets. You may have
the most innovative services, but if you put your cus-
tomers and partners at risk, you’ll fail. Policies and con-
trols must be in place to support governance rules and
requirements. You might have a policy that requires a
password to have eight letters. However, you also need a
control that states that the password can’t be the word
“password.” You have to include education as part of
implementing policy to protect your company.
✓✓Implement data governance. Many industries have
requirements to protect customer data. The risks and
financial penalties for failure are high. In an IT as a
Service environment, you have to have modules that
can be deployed based on rules and policy. Don’t take
for granted that basic data governance exists in your
company.
✓✓Manage the right service level. When you’re think-
ing about your IT as a Service environment, you must
take into account performance in terms of both service
levels and security. Pragmatically, you have to be able
to leverage a variety of services that combine to create
innovative and practical solutions to support customers.
However, if these services don’t perform well, you will
disappoint customers. You have to understand that these
services have to act as an integrated environment.
Thinking beyond
the Data Center
At the end of the day, your responsibility is to the customer
experience. Therefore, when you think about your data center
and the myriad of cloud services that are available, you need
to understand how they support the business and your cus-
tomers. Each service provides a different function in terms
of agility, predictability, and scalability. Too often companies
create a separate cloud environment to support the online
experience in isolation from the rest of the business. Your
Chapter 4: Getting Started with IT as a Service 43
cloud services aren’t simply an extension of your data center.
Cloud services can provide you with the type of flexibility
to create a new and imaginative customer experience.
When you begin to create an IT as a Service environment,

you’re designing for change. What types of new services can
you provide to customers that transform the business relation-
ship? How can you make it easier for customers and partners
to do business with you? Are there new services that will distin-
guish your products and services from those of your competi-
tors? Can you be ready to disrupt a well‐established market?
Creating a Sustainable Model

Through experimentation and a step‐by‐step approach, you
prove to the business that IT as a Service is a model that
can have an impact on the pace of business and the ability
to innovate. Now it’s time to take the next step by creating
services models that can be used repeatedly for different
business needs. You begin to create reusable business ser-
vices that codify business rules. You then link these services
together based on new business needs without reprogram-
ming at every turn. This transition of IT into a set of services
has a profound impact on the speed of business change.
These new services are paired with other IT services, includ-
ing testing, security, monitoring, and management.
You need to perform all these functions each time you bring a
set of services together to solve a new business problem. You
also need to have a best practices model that helps develop-
ers create new reusable services when new ideas are put into
practice. This new model differs from the traditional IT model
because nothing is created in isolation. All services are a joint
effort between the business and IT, so work collaboratively to
support change and innovation.
Managing for Predictability

and Change
The day when the IT organization was responsible for man-
aging the past is over. The emerging IT organization has the
potential to become an agent of change and a true partner
to the business. This movement is a step‐by‐step process. It

requires both an understanding of the strategic objectives of
the company and the availability and applicability of emerging
technologies. Most importantly, IT as a Service is an economic
model that looks at the types of technology that will lead to
real change combined with the costs of those technologies. IT
as a Service represents the industrialization of IT so it can ful-
fill the promise of technology to protect revenue in the midst
of upheaval.
The Journey Is Just Beginning

It would be wonderful to assume that you can simply create a
new platform that consists of a set of well‐defined services with
APIs. However, real innovation isn’t that simple. Keep in mind
that you will begin to build a new generation of applications
based on the DevOps model where the developers work hand in
hand with the operations team. You want to select SaaS applica-
tions that solve specific business problems. Leverage your data
across your environment to improve your decision making.
Think about business process completely differently in

this new model of IT. Business processes are guaranteed to
change as the business changes. The most advanced and
innovative companies understand that new business processes
are the hallmark of innovators. As you look into the future,
you’ll see the evolution of the IT organization as the broker
of services. This means that IT will not only create or manage
services but also make sure that services are designed to
work together seamlessly. IT makes sure that its leaders are
partners with the business in designing strategies that focus
on digital disruption.
You are embarking on an important journey of transforma-

tion. There are many tasks before you. But you aren’t alone.
Talk to your peers. Engage with professionals who have
helped other enterprises move to this new IT as a Service
model. To help you get started on your journey, check out
this link to some resources: ibm.biz/itasaservice.
You don’t have to do everything at once. Select tasks and

projects that will help prove the value of IT as a Service.
Educate your team on the type of services you’re creating and
how it can benefit from the agility and productivity of your
organization for years to come.
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IBM Limited Edition

by Judith Hurwitz and

LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: THE PUBLISHER AND THE AUTHOR MAKE

Project Editor: Carrie A. Burchfield Business Development Representative:

Chapter 1: Why You Need IT as a Service . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Chapter 2: Explaining the IT Supply Chain. . . . . . . . . . . 19

Chapter 3: Defining the Services Model. . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

Chapter 4: Getting Started with IT as a Service . . . . . . 39

The model for IT as a Service requires some advanced plan-

The goal of IT as a Service is to increase the capability of the

About This Book

How does the IT organization change as it becomes a service

If you’re a business leader or the head of IT services, this

✓✓You are already using a variety of internal and exter-

Icons Used in This Book

Pay attention to these common pitfalls of managing your foun-

This icon highlights important information that you should

This icon contains tidbits for the more technically inclined.

I T is changing rapidly in the era of digital disruption. IT

A lot has changed. IT leaders have recognized that to both

Explaining the Transition of IT

The typical IT organization has gone through many different

In the last several years, new competitive threats and busi-

Even as LoB leaders used public cloud services at an increas-

IT leaders are using IT as a Service as a way to build alliances

Becoming a trusted partner

Things were not going well. Each process. It required transforming IT

This type of modular architecture helps to create the type

The Value of the Hybrid

There are many approaches to adopting a hybrid cloud

When your company has backend transactional systems,

Looking at Different Cloud

An IaaS service is designed as a self‐service environment. A

In an IT as a Service model, it’s critical to provide users with

The emergence of a Software‐Defined Environment (SDE)

SDE brings together compute, storage, and networking to

One of the benefits of leveraging applications delivered

PaaS environment provides a set of integrated software

A well‐designed PaaS consists of an orchestrated platform

Unlike traditional software development and deployment

Business Process as a Service

There are several different ways that business processes are

Hybrid computing isn’t a single environment. Instead, it’s a

✓✓The traditional data center

The hybrid cloud is intended to help you use whichever com-

The value of a hybrid computing environment is flexibility.

When you leverage an IT as a Service model based on a modu-

What Is DevOps in the

hybrid clouds and a variety of deployment models including

We are in an era where both business users and customers

DevOps isn’t an isolated process or a one‐time action. DevOps

DevOps requires both a technical change in how applications

The focus on innovation

Flexibility at the core

✓✓Continuous innovation: Employees from across devel-

The end‐users (whether they’re customers or business users)

A DevOps approach needs to be complemented with addi-

The Importance of Automation

✓✓Orchestration services: These services automate the

✓✓Business policy services: When creating IT as a Service,

These examples help ensure that IT as a Service can operate

The Value of Brokering Services

Figure 2-1: The IT supply chain.

ompany at risk. Therefore, think about the following three

to the business. This movement is a step‐by‐step process. It